LESSON 25 BYZANTINE EMPIRE: FROM LEO THE LESSON 25 BYZANTINE EMPIRE: FROM LEO THE ISAUREAN TO THE EAST WEST SCHISMISAUREAN TO THE EAST WEST SCHISM
I. Political and Military History 717-1054
Leo the Isaurian (717-741) Constantine V (741-775)
Sought to reform church: iconoclast controversy
Defended territories against Arab Muslims Greek Fire
Lost Ravenna in Italy to the Franks
775-802 Suffered under Empress Irene
820-867 Amorian Dynasty
Successful against Arab Muslims
Fought off invading RussiansLed Bulgers to confess the Orthodox faith in 860
867-1054 Macedonian Dynasty
Basel I (867-886) “Golden Age”
Basel II (976-1025)
“During the long reign of Basil II the Byzantine Empire became the greatest power in the entire Christian and Muslim world”
Dr. Nick Needham
II. Eastern Worship
BUILDING •No pews•No musical instruments•icons
COMMUNION
SERVICE
Cense the icons
antiphonal
Essentially the same form/type ofworship practiced today!
“Where perfect sweetness dwells has Cosmas gone:
But his sweet songs to cheer the Church live on”
1. Muslims opposed icons; Islam was God’s judgment on iconworshipping Byzantium!
2. ‘I am Emperor and Priest”
ICONOCLASTS ICON BREAKERS ICONODULES ICON VENERATORSICONOPHILES ICON LOVERS
Constantine V Council of Constantinople (754)
Leo IV (775-780)
Empress Irene (780-802) 2nd Nicea (787)
7th Ecumenical Council
Empress Theodora (842) “The Triumph of Orthodoxy”
THEOLOGY OF ICONS
1. Do they violate the 2nd Commandment?
Iconoclasts-Yes
Wine and bread
Cross, not crucifix
Iconodules-NO! 2nd Commandment forbids making images of a false God, but not of Christ who is the true God
“When I worship the icon of God, I am not worshipping the nature of the woodAnd the colors (God Forbid!); but, holding to the non-living portrait of ChristI intend through it to hold and worship Christ himself”
Leonitus of Neapolis (d. 650)
2nd Council of Nicea, 867 Absolute worship latriaSecondary veneration of the icon proskunesis
2. Does the fact that the Son of God became a man enable us to portrayHim as a man?
3. What was the practice of the Early Church?
4. What was best for the uneducated people who could not read?”
“What the written word is to those who can read, the icon is to the illiterate; what speech is to the ear, the icon is to the eye”
John of Damascus
SUMMARY: Mostly Eastern Church issue
“There is not a single unambiguous text that mandated icon veneration in the first three centuries” Dr. Calhoun
IV. PHOTIUS AND THE FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY
Photius (820-895)
Teach that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son
“filioque” Latin “and the Son”
“Treatise on the Mystagogia of the Holy Spirit”
V. Byzantine Monasteries and Simeon the Theologian
VI. Byzantine missionary activity
Morovia
Bulgaria
Romania
VII. Great East West Schism
1. Great rivalry between Rome and Constantinople
2. Great differences in practice
3. Major theological differences
4. Final events precipitating the schism
WESTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHEASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH